Headed by Prof. Dr. Christian Leitz, Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES), Department of Egyptology, this research project’s aim is the analysis of the contents of the so-called temple texts which form ancient Egypt’s largest and (regardless of chronological and geographical differences) cohesive textual corpus. Most striking about this corpus besides its extent and frequently excellent state of preservation is that nearly all of the inscriptions and depictions are still to be found in situ. Although the greater part of these structures from the Greco-Roman period is no longer preserved, more than 10,000 pages of hieroglyphic text from these temples has been published, described by some as libraries of stone. The temples were adorned with inscriptions to an extent never before seen, offering a myriad of insights into cultic and festal events, to religious topography, myths, and divine groups, the history of construction, and spatial functions.
This project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences at the University of Tübingen is tasked with three major goals: 1. A classification, i.e. an analysis of form, motif, structure, and content of the exceptionally diverse textual material. 2. The analysis of the texts with recourse to their placement and their contextualisation within the religious literature of Egypt. 3. An overall interpretation of the texts treating the manner of the codification of the religious traditions of Egypt within the temples of the Greco-Roman period.